Ken Tucker’s Take on the New “House of Cards”

"House of Cards finds Kevin Spacey being waspish, supercilious,
and meanly clever — in other words, just the way we like him, and the
way he’s been most effective." That's how Ken Tucker opens his EW review of the brand new House of Cards. I believe he had to turn in his copy on the basis of only the first two episodes, so he is bound to have a lot more to say after digesting the whole series of thirteen, but he is certainly right in characterizing the Netflix original series as "a finely nasty showcase." Ken likes Kevin Spacey's asides to the viewer and asks quite pertinently whether people plan to "watch a whole batch [of episodes] in a row or to parcel them out for more conventional TV viewing." I have a feeling he will revise his opinion of Zoe Barnes ("some combinaton of cynical and dim"), but I do get a kick out of the graf that concludes, "You know what? Forget I mentioned it." — DL